Subtitle

The Not Quite Adventures of a Professional Archaeologist and Aspiring Curmudgeon

Friday, April 22, 2011

Namaste Porn

When I returned to Santa Cruz in early 2007, I began to see bumper stickers with the single word "Namaste" emblazoned on them glued to cars all over the area. After a short time, I also began to see the word on T-shirts, and occasionally worked into conversation. So, being the sort of person that I am, I decided to look it up. Namaste is a Hindi word, derived from Sanskrit, that translates literally into "I bow to you" but is more typically taken to mean "My soul bows to yours", likely because modern Sanskrit is largely a liturgical language. In India, Nepal, and parts of Pakistan, it is used as a greeting and farewell, is accompanied by a bow, and in hierarchical settings (such as a young person meeting and older person, or an employee meeting an employer) it is initiated by the junior person.

So, it's a greeting that has a specific meaning within a deeply hierarchical culture. Why is it showing up on the back bumper of every Prius in the Bay Area? Well, it's associated with India. That's pretty much all you need to know*.

As I say, the term comes from India**, and is, in the minds of a particular sub-set of (usually white) Americans and Europeans, therefore connected with deep spirituality and mysticism. Or, rather, connected with western stereotypes of deep spirituality and mysticism. That it actually derives from a strongly hierarchical social system with which most people in Europe and North America (especially most of the people who like to throw the term around) would be deeply uncomfortable is lost. This is not surprising, as to most of us in Europe and North America, the fact that India itself is a rising technological power and a place of tremendous trouble and promise is lost. We know it as a land of gurus and magic, and that we now tend to view the gurus and magicians as wise sages rather than superstitious fools as our ancestors did in no way changes the fact that the notion that India is a place of mysticism outside of our mundane world is just a continuation of the racist attitudes of our ancestors.

India is a fascinating place. It is a place with an amazing history, and with a potential for a very bright future based on the resources that it dedicates to the training of scientists and engineers, as well as the willingness of its business community and government to take advantage of the opportunities available. It is also a place of deep social problems, often crushing poverty, and forms and degrees of inequality that would make most modern westerner's heads spin. But it is a place very much of this world, and the Indian people are living in the here and now, with the rest of us. The relegation of this huge quantity of people to the mystic ghetto, is both arrogant and stupid. The notion that the traditional religious practices of India should serve as a ready-made balm for our western psyches, bored from privilege and affluence, is absurd and demonstrates our willingness to take part of multi-culturalism when, and only when, the other cultures fill the roles that we deem they should. The conversion of a greeting that has a specific social and religious meaning into a bumper sticker simply shows how frivolous we are when we claim that we are "enlightened."

In other words, the appearance and spread of the term "namaste" within Santa Cruz is, once again, another example of culture porn. The people who have this bumper sticker or who use the term in conversation are, in my experience, not even vaguely interested in what is really happening in India, nor have they an interest in actual enlightenment. They are interested in consumer products, and ideas that can be commodified like consumer products, that make them look "deep" or "spiritual" or "enlightened" without ever actually having to leave their comfort zones.

*Well, that, and a group of frequently violent people used it on the show Lost, which I always found funny and I assume was intended to be ironic.

*Actually, I said that it comes from the larger region of south Asia, but in most American/European eyes, it's identified with India.

6 comments:

I first heard the term Namaste in a yoga class (and this was a stretching - exercise type class not a mystical class). I asked the instructor and she explained it to mean a term of welcoming and a wish for peace for the other person (roughly hello/goodbye come/go in peace). I thought it was a kind of sweet term.

Now I'm thinking it's not so sweet. I wonder how many of the people with Namaste bumper stickers and t-shirt think it means the same sort of thing that I learned.

I think that the rampant use of the term itself isn't a problem. What seems to be a problem to me is that there's an underlying "consumption" of other cultures that can be corrosive to our abilities to deal with other people.

Do you likewise vilify Japanese kids who love U.S. cowboy-western paraphernalia and the "culture" that goes along with it, despite never having been on a "real cattle drive" or ever having lived a "real cowboy lifestyle?"

As I see it, an inevitable part of cultural interaction is how one people adopts and uses the cultural concepts of others. Americans tend to consumer-ize everything, including other cultural concepts (compare supermarket sushi to the high culinary art form you find in Japan, for instance).

So I'd argue that even though not every American wearing a "namaste" t-shirt understands the full, original Indian significance of the word, they are still more likely to appreciate Indian culture on some level because of that t-shirt. I think you read a level of ignorance and disrespect for Indian culture into this dynamic that simply isn't there.

You fail to take into account that the fetishization of Asia in general and India in particular by people in North America and Europe comes directly from the "mystic orient" notion that is tied in to the history of European colonialism. The same attitude has been extended to others as well, most notably Native Americans.

You also fail to take into account that this tendency has had real consequences for the people viewed as "mystical", both historically (it was one of the ways in which poor behavior on the part of colonial powers was justified) and recently in the marginalization of people from these cultures within Europe and the U.S.

By contrast, the Japanese kids that you point to are having little impact on those of us living in the U.S., and their attitude is based on intentional export of media from the U.S. to the rest of the world, rather than being imposed on the U.S. by outsiders. Big difference.

So because we're powerful enough to have had a historical effect on other nations (and by we, you're now somehow including the entire Western civilization, not just the U.S.) we are more at fault for not holding THEIR traditions exactly as sacred as they do, even though they do the same thing with ours but with less historical effect on us?